Tour de France Victor Riis Admits to Doping
The confessions keep coming. Former Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis admitted on Friday to having taken the performance enhancing drug EPO as well as GH and cortisone.
All it took was a gentle shove. In late April, former cycling masseur Jef D'Hont went public in the pages of DER SPIEGEL magazine with stories from his time on Germany's most successful bike racing team, Telekom. This week, the confessions have been coming fast and furious.
On Friday, Bjarne Riis made the most dramatic admission so far. In 1996, the Danish rider won the Tour de France for Team Telekom, the first of two in a row for the team (Jan Ullrich took the title in 1997). At a press conference in Copenhagen on Friday, Riis admitted that he took the blood boosting hormone EPO, or erythropoietin.
"I have taken doping. I have taken EPO," Riis said at the televised news conference. "I have made errors and I would like to apologize." Riis also admitted to having taken the performance enhancing drug from 1993 to 1998 -- including during the 1996 Tour. He also said he had used cortisone and human growth hormone.
"My jersey is at home in a cardboard box," he said, referring to the yellow jersey worn by the Tour de France leader and presented to the race winner. "They are welcome to come and get it. I have my memories for myself." He continued: "I'm proud of my results even though they were not completely honest. I'm coming out today to secure the right future for the sport."
Riis's disclosure is the seventh this week by a former member of the Telekom team, which now races under the name T-Mobile. German cycling idol Eric Zabel went before the press on Thursday with a similar confession, and so did Rolf Aldag -- both rode in support of Riis's 1996 victory and admitted to taking EPO in the 1990s. Brian Holm also went public with his doping past on Thursday following Bart Dietz, Christian Henn and Udo Bölts earlier this week.
The string of confessions is a major scandal in Germany, and Chancellor Angela Merkel has prodded all of the nation's pro cyclists who may have used performance-enhancing drugs to break a "cartel of silence." "The confessions and investigations so far are not sufficient to sort things out," said Merkel said in a statement on Friday.
'Maybe I'm not a Hero Anymore'
D'Hont went public with his experiences as a massage therapist for professional cyclists in a book published in Belgium in late April and excerpted in a SPIEGEL cover story. He described the chronic use of EPO -- a synthetic hormone which mimics a nearly identical natural hormone and enhances the blood's capacity to transport oxygen -- in professional racing. Both Erik Zabel and Rolf Aldag on Thursday mentioned the story as the reason for their public confessions. Both had denied doping numerous times in the past.
In addition to the slew of riders now admitting to having used performance enhancers, two doctors from a clinic in Freiburg who had worked closely with the Telekom riders admitted to participating in a systematic regime of doping on the team. Both had long been suspected of doing so, but they were immediately suspended by the Freiburg clinic. They may face a loss of their license and could even be prosecuted for violating German drug laws.
Riis is currently the sporting director for the Danish racing team CSC. The team got rid of Riis's predecessor, Giro d'Italia winner Ivan Basso, when he came under suspicion during a Spanish investigation into a group of Madrid doctors who allegedly helped athletes dope. Basso denied having links with the doctors.
Riis's successor on the Tour de France victor's podium was Jan Ullrich, even more legendary and beloved in Germany than Zabel. Ullrich recently came under grave suspicion of using performance enhancing drugs and retired from racing last month. D'Hont claimed to have given Ullrich EPO during the Tour in 1997, the year he won. But so far Ullrich denies having doped.
The American Floyd Landis, who won the Tour in 2006, tested positive for elevated testosterone levels immediately after his victory and is currently awaiting the findings of an arbitration panel deciding on his case. He could be stripped of his title and banned from professional cycling for up to two years.
As with all of the confessions that have come prior to Riis, the Dane refused to implicate any other riders during his confession and early in the press conference said that he had bought and administered the drug by himself.
"It's possible that I'm not a hero anymore," he said. "I'm sorry if I've disappointed people. And for those for whom I was a hero, I'm sorry. They'll have to find new heroes now."
